Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Well appeal

At the start of the year we fitted a water meter to the tap next to our polytunnels, which has shown us that 52% of the farm's total water use (including the farmhouse) is used for irrigating our polytunnels. In one of our fields we have an historic well, now sealed with a manhole cover, which we have the potential to bring back into use. We have had the water professionally tested and it has proved to be of good enough quality to be used for both irrigation and watering livestock (all our chicken sheds now have guttering and water-butts, so we rarely need to use mains water for our poultry anyway). To re-open the well and install the equipment necessary to allow us to irrigate our polytunnels will cost in the region of £5000. This would cut our water bills by half, and significantly improve the overall sustainability of the farm. On the right hand side of this blog we have installed a button where you can donate money to our Well Appeal, to help us with this latest step towards becoming a sustainable community farm. Many thanks!